


how to train your dragoon

by arahir



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Humor, M/M, Mild Angst, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:07:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25963357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arahir/pseuds/arahir
Summary: Aymeric and Estinien are in love. It would just be great, Lucia thinks, if they would tell each other some time before the Eighth Umbral Calamity.What's lying in the bed is somehow not The Azure Dragoon, former possessed of Nidhogg, or even Aymeric's coarse-yet-loyal friend, but one of the most beautiful men she has ever laid eyes on.To her everlasting shame, Lucia lets out a small laugh—a sound of pure shock.Aymeric tuts. "Yes, quite. He looks terrible."Terrible.
Relationships: Aymeric de Borel/Estinien Wyrmblood
Comments: 91
Kudos: 209





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know the reason there aren't thirty fics with this title is because this fandom has self respect, but I don't.

The helmet comes off. 

After blood and fire, after a fight that nearly shattered the heavens and Ishgard with it, Aymeric carries Estinien back. Up the slope and through Foundation, to the Congregation, and all the way up to the infirmary, which would be a surprise in itself given the wound in his side she knows still plagues him on cold days—every day, then—but it isn’t. Not after the helmet comes off.

To say Lucia had no expectation would be a lie. She expected a man of average comeliness, a bit rough around the edges, like anyone raised in the Temple Knights, and Estinien rougher than most at that. Maybe she wondered for the first year she served Aymeric and had to play silent watcher to their strange camaraderie. Did Estinien have a face? Was it horribly disfigured? It might explain his distance, and at least some of Aymeric's wistful gazing, if Estinien bore the horrid mark of some dragon's fang, claw, or fire. A mark he gained protecting Aymeric, no doubt. The tragedy of it, the _longing_.

At any rate, the reveal is so long in coming that by the time the helmet comes off, Lucia has almost forgotten to have expectations at all.

Aymeric works it free with an oddly practiced care, and she gets to play silent witness to the unmasking as skin is unveiled: the arch of an elegant, pale neck. A small, perfect mouth with dark lips. Cheekbones as sharp as Estinien’s armor, and then, to crown it all a cascade of snow-white hair, pale as the mane on some magical beast attracted only to purity and goodness and the laughter of children—but on Estinien’s head. 

What's lying in the bed is somehow not The Azure Dragoon, former possessed of Nidhogg, or even Aymeric's coarse-yet-loyal friend, but one of the most beautiful men she has ever laid eyes on.

To her everlasting shame, Lucia lets out a small laugh—a sound of pure shock. 

Aymeric tuts. "Yes, quite. He looks terrible."

 _Terrible_. 

He cradles Estinien's—doll-like, comically perfect, lovely by any definition—head in his hands and sweeps Estinien's feathered bangs from his eyes. Eyelashes simply cannot be that long. It's not feasible in a helmet—how does he look out the visor? Beside Aymeric’s dark head and gilt-on-blue armor, Estinien’s pale hair and grime-coated mail look like some artist’s rendition of a fallen hero in the arms of his noble lover. She wants to lock eyes with any of the healers and to ask silently if they see what she sees, but her training won’t allow for more than a dead-eyed stare she hopes is managing to hide that she is losing it on a fundamental level.

"Oh, my dearest friend," Aymeric murmurs. 

And, well. Now Lucia gets it.

* * *

Aymeric carries Estinien home. 

All the way up to the city, until long after his arms have gone have numb, and his muscles are cramping with the effort. It's not so bad. Dragoon armor is light by necessity and Estinien lighter still. Possession of a mortal vessel did not enamor Nidhogg to its care and feeding, apparently—if he ate at all—and that thought sends him to a place he can’t go in that moment. Even the smell coming off the body in his arms is enough to gain him a respectful and wide berth as he makes his slow course back into the city. 

Up the steps, up the walk, past the ruins from dragonfire past, the scaffolds against walls either half-built or abandoned to the ice, into Congregation and up to the infirmary. 

On that last stretch, his limbs start shaking. Not with fatigue—or not _only_ fatigue—but with fear for what they'll find when they get the armor off, if it comes off at all. The arm and shoulder will be the worst. The metal appears melted where the eyes were fused to it, and Aymeric’s mind entertains myriad horrors for what lies beneath: the armor bound to flesh and bone, or little left of either. 

But he can only go one step at a time. 

That’s one of the first bits of wisdom Estinien deigned to share with him, back when they were still early in their training for the Temple Knights. No doubt Estinien doesn’t recall it at all. Most like he forgot the moment after he said it: _one step at a time._ Aymeric was unused to their long marches then, and though he was no slouch, the Knights asked much of their newest. _Don’t look too far down the road,_ Estinien murmured as he idled by Aymeric a moment on a long slope, and though the words were so soft they might have been for no one, it braced him then. And if he spent the next dozen malms mindlessly following the bob of Estinien’s tail of tied-back hair, it was good a motivation as any. In a way, he never stopped.

A room is already set out at the Congregation. It’s one of the large ones that can make room for extra beds in hard times, but he’s grateful for its emptiness then. Aymeric lays his burden out on the crisp white sheets and then, quite suddenly, has no idea what to do with himself. A thousand people and questions, of course, demand his attention, but he can no more step away from the bed than he could let another carry Estinien to it. 

The chirurgeons work around him as best they can until it becomes absurd for them to try. 

"Sir." The head chirurgeon, Abel, gives him an apologetic look that says this is one battle that cannot be fought and won with the weight of a blade.

His compromise is to fit himself against the wall at the head of the bed, where he at least won't be tripped over. Leaving is out of the question. He focuses on breathing, on calming the dull thud of his heart in his chest as he watches the chirurgeons manipulate Estinien’s limp body. For a few moments they work in silence, and then one of the chirurgeons takes pity on him. "You might help us get his armor off, Sir.”

He nods, relieved. This, at least, Aymeric can do. How many times has he done this for Estinien? Hard days of training and weeks in the field when Estinien really seemed to think their Temple Knight armor was as good as a second skin, even far past when the need for a good cleaning overtook him. The habit stuck even after Estinien was named Azure Dragoon, if only because Aymeric was the only soul daring enough to point out that the patina of dragon’s blood and dirt he sported was not nearly as impressive or sanitary as Estinien seemed to think. Sometimes he could even get Estinien to sit still long enough for a hair combing—but only sometimes.

He sits at the head of the bed and pulls Estinien's helmeted head into his lap as the chirurgeons work off the boots and greaves. With practiced ease, he draws his fingers under the helm until he finds the strap, uncinches it and pulls it off in one smooth motion.

Lucia's gasp of shock breaks the relative silence. 

Indeed, Estinien's face is wreckage. Sweat has drawn lines through the grime on his cheeks, and dried and drawn them again. His veins are webs of bruise up his neck and jaw where the dragon's malice once ran them red, and his pale hair is stiff with grime in places. Aymeric picks it from Estinien's forehead and has to resist the mad but desperate urge to bow his own head to meet it, to feel his too-warm skin and know he’s somehow lived through this, if only for the moment.

"Oh, my dearest friend," he says, because Estinien is that, at least, even now, and part of Aymeric has never recovered from having to loose an arrow at his heart and mean it.

After that, the rest seems easy. It’s like tearing off a bandage; they’ve come this far, and he still breathes. The rest of the armor comes off faster with his help. He pauses only to strip his own heavy coats and armor and lay them aside. They uncover Estinien's pallid skin one labored ilm at a time. The dirt left by the armor and weeks of wear has to be soaked off. A bath would be better, but the chirurgeons are still working on prying his gauntlets and breastplate and whatever lies beneath. It falls to Aymeric to tease the grime off his skin. A woman hands him a clean cloth and fresh bowl and he starts damping clean his hair and face until he looks familiar again, working around the red abrasions left by the Drachen mail. 

It's a kind of calming work. He falls into an easy rhythm. Dip the cloth, wring it, dab until the cloth is dark, repeat. This isn't the kind of work he's often afforded the time and space to get bored with since he became Lord Commander, but it was every day of being a Temple Knight. Endless marching, endless sparring, endless busy work with brief boughts of terrible excitement—Estinien always there, ahead or behind or right at his shoulder. Whittling arrow shafts in exchange for Aymeric making him something edible over the campfire, because whatever it is lancers do, it always left Estinien whip-thin and quietly starving. 

Only the murmuring from the chirurgeons as they finally reveal his forearm is enough to pull Aymeric from his thoughts.

He makes himself look, heart in his throat. The skin of it is raw and red and veined with black, and the texture of it odd, almost stippled, almost like scales, but… it isn’t bad. It isn’t bare bone or ruined muscle or rotten flesh. Aymeric holds his breath while they pull the off the breastplate, too, and for endless minutes Abel turns Estinien's arms over, flexes them, prods at the muscle and hums. When he looks at Aymeric, it's with a soft smile.

"I believe he will heal in full." 

At last, Aymeric feels he can breathe.

* * *

The Lord Commander doesn't leave Estinien's bedside that day, or that night; Lucia finds him propped there in a chair, elbow cocked on the bed, doing what he insists on referring to as “resting his eyes,” though in Lucia's opinion it's more apt to call it simply passing out. It's clear from the angle that he didn't fall asleep looking over the pile of missives in his lap but rather watching Estinien.

Ever the light sleeper, the smallest clearing of her throat has him jerking awake and searching the room until his eyes fall on her, and then dart to Estinien still resting in bed. He drags his hand through his hair and stretches a moment. "News?" 

"None." It seems for the first time in recent history everyone has taken the order to get some rest to heart.

"Good." His expression is still troubled though. Pinched, and a little blue around the eyes. She almost regrets waking him. Sleep has been hard to come by these years and even with Nidhogg defeated, Aymeric will find ways to keep himself utterly without time to do more than breathe, if that.

Maybe were Estinien awake he could aid her in badgering him into a meal at least now and then, but...

Lucia steps closer to make her own examination. Estinien's cheeks are still pale. More than can be accounted for by years of wearing his helmet at every sunlit hour. He's nearly as pale as his hair and the sheets that surround him.

"How is he?" 

"Unchanged," Aymeric murmurs, and oh, the moroseness to it. As if Estinien would be one to die in his bed without even a whimper to mark his passing. If there's one truth in all Ishgard, it's that the only thing capable of killing either Estinien or Aymeric is their own sense of honor and stupidity. It's well that she's had years of practicing a straight face; the fond smile trying to break across it dies before her lips can twitch. 

"He looks—well enough, at least,” she tries. “His hair could use a washing, but he'll be handsome again one day, I'm sure."

Aymeric gives a quiet laugh, this side of aghast. "Handsome. He would jump out the window if he were awake to hear you say it." But then he looks to his charge and his head tilts a degree. “Handsome. Yes. I suppose he is."

There is no _suppose_ about it, though. Even if one were to find him not to their taste, they would still have to admit Estinien beautiful.

She cocks her head and examines his face once more. Underneath the healing abrasions, it’s un-lined and delicate. “I suppose his lips are a bit thin.”

Aymeric shifts. "They—what?" He darts a look at her and then at Estinien's face, as if it will have changed in the last two breaths and says, "They are not."

She doesn't reply. He gives her a look that's perilously close to disappointed and then moves closer to the bed and reaches out. He hovers his fingers over Estinien’s mouth, and then traces down to his bandaged shoulder, and then to the arm that’s exposed above the sheets, so light she can't tell if he's touching at all. When he gets to Estinien's hand he lays his own on top of it and laces their fingers in a light hold. It's a gesture so seamless it can only be practiced, and it takes her aback. Not something she was supposed to notice, done in her presence only because around Aymeric sometimes forgets to keep up his guard around her. 

If Estinien were awake, would he be so brave? Would it be bravery at all? Or is this something he's already done with Estinien's eyes on him?

She knows the answer even as she wonders. This is something they would share and think nothing of. 

He sighs. "Handsome,” he scoffs again. “By the time I joined the Knights, he'd put the fear of his lance in anyone who thought to comment on his looks. And now I'm afraid I've known him too long to see him as anything save what he is."

What he means is that he's seen too much of Estinien, and she understands. Once, she thought Aymeric an avatar of beauty, but then she saw him idealistic and bloody and tired and foolish and young, and even, once or twice, drunk. And he was not beautiful anymore but a friend. That's what Aymeric means, but the difference between him and her is that Lucia has not had the urge to run her fingers down Aymeric's face recently, or held him in her arms even when he was out of danger simply to have him close, or stripped him free of his armor and wiped clean his naked skin with desperate care.

If Aymeric can truly scoff at Estinien’s good looks, it's only because they are secondary. It's only because, when he looks at Estinien in full armor, covered in a dragon's blood, cursing and raging and jumping about the field like a living meteor, he sees the same thing he sees before him now: a friend. 

No—not _a_ friend. His dearest friend. Perhaps no one in Ishgard has known him longer or better. 

“You…” she starts and can’t find a way to finish. His dedication to his work, to Ishgard, always felt personal. But his father is dead now, for what little he was ever worth, and he’s spoken of his adopted parents only distantly and rarely. Never has she had cause to question what made his cause seem so close to him—but there must be something tying him to this city beyond what hope can provide. He must have something, at lea

She considers his face, and Estinien’s, and their laced fingers, and wonders if she’s missed something. “You and he,” she starts again, though she loses her nerve once more and the words trail off too soft for Aymeric to hear, surely, even in the quiet. 

“Do you think he’ll wake? Truly?”

This is not the first time he’s voiced his fears, but it still takes her by surprise. “Of course,” she says honestly. “What would you do if he didn’t?”

“I don’t know.” The answer doesn’t sound lost so much as resigned, as if he truly doesn’t know, and then he takes a deep breath. “Carry on.” 

Of course. When has he done otherwise? Never has he sounded so resigned at the prospect. “He will wake,” she says, unused to this dynamic between them, unused to an Aymeric that needs comfort or accepts it. It’s not something she’s good at besides; it comes across terse and dismissive and wrong. 

Aymeric smiles though, softly, still looking at Estinien. “You’re right, of course.” And then, as if it’s natural and rote as his forms with the sword, he pulls the hand in his to his lips and presses them to Estinien’s bruised knuckles. 

And she realizes she _has_ missed something. The only way any man could look at another this way, carry him, hold him, stay by his side, and say with bald-faced honesty that he cannot find him handsome is if he is already hopelessly, hideously in love with him.


	2. Chapter 2

She isn't sure. Not that day, or even the next, both of which Aymeric spends in silent vigil by Estinien's sickbed whenever his duties allow it. 

Rather, it becomes a sort of archaeological study for her. In Garlemald, she had a passing interest in the subject—stories of great heroes they were raised for battle on, ruins they pillaged for power. For her, this is a purely intellectual question, a curiosity that won't stop nagging and grows the longer it sits in her mind, as she runs back through every moment she spent in close company with both Aymeric and Estinien, picking over remembered expressions and gestures for any clue.

The second day of Aymeric's vigil finds her in the mess hall, puzzling over it all while conversation swirls around her. It's loud and jovial the way it so rarely was during the war. Days later and they’re still trading stories about Nidhogg's fall. The raw excitement is infectious after so many hard years in this cold land. Ishgard's quiet has worked its way into her and usually she eats with no one but herself, or sometimes Aymeric, but to be in the thick of this… This is why she stayed. Aymeric's dream, almost fulfilled. 

"How's he?" Marcelain leans in across the table. He means either Aymeric or Estinien, and which doesn't matter since she left them both in the same position they've been in for days.

"As expected. No change." 

He nods to himself as if he already knew, as if all of Aymeric and Estinien’s secrets are not secrets at all to him.

She pushes her plate away and clears her throat, settling herself because she's not used to this, to doing anything so close to gossip and never about the Lord Commander himself. "You knew them when they were recruits,” she starts, and the table goes silent. "The Commander and Estinien."

Marcelain swallows, audibly, and nods. “Everyone knew them, those two.” A few other heads at the table bob in commiseration. “Estinien was a prodigy, right from the go. Fair with a blade and better with a lance—and what's more, he had the fire for it, and he was young. Still young now, I grant. They both are.” There are few who aren’t, she stops herself from interjecting. Even Marcelain can’t be past forty, but he goes on. “Aymeric used to follow him like a pup. Bring him rations when he forgot to eat. We had bets on Estinien learning his name first or skewering him by accident. Do you remember?” Beltardois nods and Marcelain shakes his head, rueful. "Now, look at them."

She has been looking. Hard not to.

"Oh the fights that man used to get into," someone mutters, and someone else—Handeloup, she realizes—snorts. 

At her raised brow he stops hiding behind his goblet of wine. He's known them at least as long as they've known each other. Once, she wondered why he was passed over for Lord Commander, but he never wanted it, nor any part of nonsense, she realized after a time. In all their days together, she can't recall him ever looking so exasperated or so fond. "Gods. That was when those rumors started about Aymeric and the Archbishop. All lies we thought, though it hardly mattered. Just some jealous soul trying to dark a rising star and no more, but Estinien couldn't stand for it. That was the first time I ever saw the man angry about something other than a Dravanian or a late meal."

He takes another drink and looks to the rafters as if they have more sense than dragoons. “If anyone so much as whispered about bastards or nepotism, Estinien would have them out bleeding in the yard in the hour."

"Do you remember the time—" Marcelain starts. Handeloup slaps the table and points.

"Yes! Aymeric had to bail him out of the Vault. Estinien nearly got himself dismissed from the Knights for that—" 

"And he told Aymeric it was a fight over portions in the mess, wasn’t it?” He shakes his head and pokes at his plate of gratin or whatever popoto dish they've decided constitutes a three course meal for the night and mutters under his breath, "Well, I might not kill a man for seconds, but I could rough him up."

"You would." Handeloup smiles, and sighs. “But, of course, Aymeric didn't buy it. He must have known right from the start." And suddenly his smile makes sense, because this is something they know, the two of them. Aymeric would never question Estinien on a decision. The brief time when he stole Nidhogg's eye with nary a word and hied off into the wilds of Coerthas for weeks doing gods know what comes to mind.

Aymeric simply took it in stride, with faith. _He will return, when needs must._

"But that was their way," Marcelain says as if he's been listening to her thoughts. 

The past tense bites. They seem to all realize it at the same moment and the mood goes from the delight of jibbing those who aren’t there to defend themselves to downright dour in an instant. 

After a moment, Handeloup leans in close and private, keeping whatever he has to say between the two of them. "If you want to know more—" And of course he would notice her indelicate prying, _of course_ , "—ask him about the dragon. Ask both of them, when our friend wakes."

"…Dragon. You couldn't narrow it down?"

He gives her a look that says he might be willing to die for Ishgard and their Lord Commander, and he would gladly have thrown himself into the fire to save their Azure Dragoon, too, but he's not paid enough to care about any soulful gazing. That’s all she’s getting out of him.

* * *

"How, again, did you and he meet?" she asks, and hazards, “Did it involve a dragon?”

It's not an awkward question to ask, not when her daily reports have to be made in part to Estinien's nigh lifeless body as Aymeric holds one of the scarred hands loosely in his own. A stack of missives written on mismatched paper sits balanced on his crossed legs, forgotten. The room is almost ethereal with morning light, casting the figure in the bed in washed out colors like he’s a tomb’s statue and wrought in marble.

Aymeric quirks an eyebrow at her. He’s dour today, more worried than he has been. "It’s not much of a tale. We were both Temple Knights, in the same company, and he already a name on everyone's lips by his skill alone.” He turns to her, the lightest of smiles pulling at the corner of his lips. “I haunted his steps wanting to know his secret, though he hardly knew I existed. We were caught unaware one day on the march. All of our company was decimated save he and I. Estinien set off for the hunt without me. I followed and found him facing off against a foe ten times his size. He might have won on his wits, but I had a spare arrow—and, well.” 

Lucia smiles despite herself. Aymeric might be the best shot in the whole of the Temple Knights, though it took years to find that out. “And after?” Two fresh young Knights alone in the wilderness of Coerthas with no more than a bow and a lance is hardly a happy tale. 

"Suffice to say, the path back to Ishgard was not what we expected. I'm not sure which of us made a poorer pillow for the offer but we both got our shot at it. He hardly said a word the way back, but..." Aymeric touches his mouth, as if he isn't sure what expression he's making. "By the time we returned, I was sure. No other would I have at my side in a fight." He glances at her and adds, "Excluding present company, of course."

She inclines her head. “Of course."

For a moment she thinks that’s the whole of it and it’s hardly the revelation she thought it would be, but then Aymeric sits back all at once, releasing Estinien’s hand to comb through his own hair, almost nervously. "We drank the night we returned. Every ounce of liquor we earned and a few more beside. That horrid sweet stuff they sell in the Brume—I still have no taste for it, to this day."

She knows what stuff exactly. A fruit concoction you can smell more than taste, that made her long for Garlemald's harder spirits, that taste like nothing but regret or maybe ceruleum fuel. "I never took you for a drinking man. Either of you."

"We’re not. We got blindingly drunk and swore to be brothers in arms, by duty and by blood, and I woke with a headache like someone pushed me off the Observatorium."

She repeats his words in her head once, and then twice. Unless she’s missed something _rather_ significant… “Blood?” 

Aymeric raises his palm to her—the one he was holding Estinien’s hand with, and there she sees it: a thin line of scar that breaks all the lines and calluses. If she checked Estinien’s hand, she’s sure he would have one to match. He rubs over the scar with his thumb as he pulls it back, a nervous tick she realizes she's seen a hundred times. 

"That's what I remember of the night, at least."

Another piece teased free of the morass that is their relationship, polished and put on a shelf. She wants to sigh, one part relief, one part weariness, because she’ll never forget the cold down her spine of realizing Aymeric could still surprise her the day he marched into the Cathedral on his own, ready to fight his father for nothing greater than what was right. Gods forbid she find out too late that Aymeric made some sort of death pact with Estinien when they were both young and drunk, or perhaps that they performed some other sort of pact and a ring is tucked safe somewhere in Aymeric's voluptuous armor marking them both as lawfully wed and desperately frustrated.

Doubtful.

She imagines them both bleary with drink after a week in the wild with nothing for warmth or comfort than the other, heads bowed together, making promises. Maybe the ring would be better, on second thought.

“It’s nearly time for dinner,” she says in a tone she hopes conveys that he still requires food and she’ll frogmarch him down to the mess if he doesn’t comply willingly. 

To her quiet delight, he nods and gathers his papers and stands with a groan. “You’ll get me if anything changes?” 

Nothing will, but she nods. It’s not as though Aymeric is the only one lined up to keep watch at Estinien’s bedside, anyway.

* * *

She has only to wait mere minutes for the boy to stick his head in the door. “Has he—”

“No.” Though she wishes Estinien were awake for no other reason than to tell off his endless string of well-wishers and worriers. 

What would he say to Aymeric? A quiet word? A smile? She can’t imagine what it would look like on that face. She tries to imagine him saying any of the thousand indelible curses she’s heard him utter, from that mouth, and can’t. She tries to imagine his glare and can’t do that either. Her time as a spy was inglorious and short-lived, but back when she'd still entertained thoughts of betraying Aymeric, Estinien was a point of terror. She'd wondered why the illustrious Azure Dragoon, ever-armored, bothered with a petty officer of the Temple Knights like Aymeric, and wondered if he could smell the disloyalty on her like a dragon sniffing out blood. 

But then she'd heard Aymeric on one of his swooping schemes for Ishgard and thought she might understand why Estinien cared for him so. 

Or was it that he simply cared for Ishgard? 

"On your travels with him, did he say anything?" Lucia asks the boy, mostly to distract him from his own tears, which have been coming in proximity to Estinien’s body, quietly, softly, just at the edges of his eyes. It's been a challenge to keep a rotating schedule between Aymeric's quiet lovelorn vigil and Alphinaud's anguished silence where they won't get in the way of each other. Really, it's a whole spectrum of mourning—and the man isn't even dead yet. In fact, he twitched the day before while Aymeric was wiping clean his brow—clean of _what?_ —and she'd thought it might overturn the entire schedule.

Alphinaud wipes his eyes on his fine sleeves. "Rarely. He mostly made fun of me for not knowing how to set a cookfire or keep briars out of my boots." She has to bite her tongue to keep from laughing at the very concept of the perennial beggar at Aymeric's table knowing more about cooking than Alphinaud, but then the boy rubs at his cheek with one sleeve, almost angry. "He did speak of peace. I think he would be proud of the Lord Commander. Of all of us. Of what Ishgard will become." 

The _if he were here to see it_ is nearly whispered at the last and it almost undoes her.

She feels a sort of companionship with the body in the bed, the two of them forced to bear silent witness to all the folly of man that has played out in this room. But of course, he hasn't really had to do more than sleep and look beautiful and tragic. It's hard not to be a bit resentful, on principle. Without passion or judgment she traces back over his unlined face, over the small, dark mouth, and high cheekbones, up to his eyes, still closed in perfect sleep—

No, not perfect. His eyes are moving behind his lids, trapped in some dream. If she reached out and slapped him, he’d open his eyes, almost certainly, but she can’t bring herself to do it in front of the boy.

Alphinaud follows her gaze and bursts into tears once more.

* * *

It still takes him a day to wake. Even then, he wakes only long enough for a short conversation she hears second-hand, between the Warrior, the boy, and Aymeric. By all appearances it will be a long recovery with time enough for Aymeric to get his fill of Estinien as captive audience—but as in all things, Estinien delights in bucking expectations.

The thing wrong with him, she decides later, standing beside Aymeric as they both stare down at the carefully made and very much empty sickbed, is that he's a good man. 

A worse one would play off the renown of a defunct position as head dragonslayer in a city no longer interested in slaying anything and live out all his days in blissful peace. An even slightly less than good one would at least stick around for the free food and good company, but no.

She can't make out a single word of the illegible note—is it even in common?—that he's left on the pillow but Aymeric stares at it a long time before he says anything, fingering the edge of it until it's all feathered and bent.

"I knew he would do this," he says at last. Not with regret, or anger, or even simple, selfish disappointment, but almost with pride. If only he looked a little less like someone had torn his heart out, too. 

"Did he say where he's gone?" 

"No. Only to make things right."

 _What_ right? As if Ishgard safe wasn't enough. As if giving up half of one's life and almost the rest of it too wasn't enough. And yet Aymeric sounds nothing but fond. They really are a match made in some sort of heaven.

She tries for optimism. "He'll be back."

"No," Aymeric says after a tight breath he can't mean for her to hear. "I don't think he will."

And that's just morose thinking, except that he might have a point. A man bent on fixing all that's wrong with their world would never find rest in it. Garleans are made of more pragmatic stuff. Honor never before reason and often well after that. Maybe that's why she stayed, for all their hard-bit Ishgardian honor, but there are moments she can't help but wish for some of that selfishness. It would make life easier. Far easier than watching this. 

Aymeric folds the note once, and then over again and tucks it into the hidden folds of his black tunic. Without another word, he leaves, and for once he leaves no orders in his wake. Not even a goodbye, for courtesy's sake, and the chirurgeon's assistants still in the room watch him go, darting looks between themselves. She forgets how intimidating he can be, something about his brow and the quirk of his mouth. If only they knew.

"Sir, what shall we do with the armor?" one of them asks, motioning to the discarded Drachen mail piled against the wall. 

"Don't throw it away. The Commander will want it." 

Lucia takes the red-stained helm in hand—gloved hand—with a care that's at least half disgust. "To remember the sacrifices we all have made to end this war," she mutters which is at least better than the truth that Aymeric will likely spend some minutes staring at it and then some minutes more, later, doing the same, when he thinks no one is watching. Perhaps sigh at it.

She already feels a headache coming on.

* * *

He does just that, it turns out. He also holds the thing up to stare into its hollow visage deeply, at length, and then taps his forehead to it and murmurs some indistinguishable nothings.

It might be a bit more serious than she bargained for.

Love and war rarely meet under best circumstances. She's seen it a hundred times, in a hundred different forms. The obsessive, fanatical affection her sister had for Gaius. The little crush every other new recruit has for the Lord Commander, convinced it's something real. Haurchefant and the Warrior of Light, a great burning thing, growing each day, extinguished before it could really catch. That isn't this.

This is a settling down kind of love. This is an end of the day, heads together over some secret confidence, thigh-to-thigh and breath-to-breath kind of love that you take for granted because it's become so ingrained it seems merely a part of them both—and it hurts to watch. Maybe once Aymeric knew it for what it was, but too long spent pretending it was nothing, and the lie became the truth. And now a man who could march into the seat of Ishgard’s power to confront his bastard of a father with a thousand-year lie can't brave up the will to fight for something he wants only for himself.

There is no word from Estinien after his exit. They hear from the Warrior that he might have been to Azys Lla for god knows what reason. A journey of redemption, just as Aymeric said, and well. If he wanted redemption, he might start by coming home and pulling Aymeric from his window-vigils. He seems to think Estinien will appear in mid-air or perched on some distant rooftop, though when she asks, he only says in his low-sweet voice that he's _surveying the horizon_. 

Surveying the horizon. Gods spare them all.

Weeks turn to a month, and then they receive a small missive scribbled in hieroglyphic handwriting via moogle or flying bird or dragon. Lucia isn't there for the arrival; only the aftermath. 

"He's alive," Aymeric tells her and almost breaks on the word, the note the only object on his desk. "I am… relieved."

"Did you think otherwise?"

"Of him? No. His last will be so spectacular, no doubt we'll feel the tremors of it even here." But for all that he's smiling, it's only faint, and his eyes are lined, as if he really does wait for the rumble of a distant storm to prove him right. And if this is him with Estinien absent, she doesn't want to see him with Estinien dead. There would be a statue. She can see it now, towering over the Firmament in spiked glory, and none would ever know that what lay under that carved helmet was the face of some lordling's porcelain doll. 

Oh, the dolls. Wind-up dolls… Dress-up dolls… Maybe an official painting that would stare at her every time she walked into Aymeric's office. _To honor him,_ he would say in his finest voice, and she would have to find new employ on principle. 

It's been, she realizes suddenly, too much of this. She owes him something. For all the trust he has in her, for all the faith, she owes this man the truth. 

"We are honest with each other," she says. Not a question, but Aymeric shifts and nods. 

"Always."

"Then I would like you to consider what I am about to say. Deeply."

He nods once more, but it's wary. She tries to think of a tactful way to say what needs to be said and comes up empty-handed. Pretty words were never her province, so goes simply with, "You are in love with him."

Aymeric frowns, opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it again to say, "With whom?" 

"Estinien."

To his credit, he doesn't balk nor make for the window. In fact, he seems to find it funny. He shakes his head and waves his hand. "No, no. Love?" He shakes his head once more, the mere concept ridiculous apparently. "I love him, yes, but as a friend. As a brother. In arms. I love him as all Ishgardians love their fellows." He's on a roll. Gearing up to a full speech _._

She quirks an eyebrow at him, and he bulls ahead. 

"Ah, perhaps not _all_ , but—no." He stands from his desk. "I would know. We have been together all these long, long years, through all hardship." He pushes a hand through his hair. " _One_ of us would know." 

Now he's pacing, slowly, in circles. They bring him round until he's at the window, his usual sighing spot, and there on the mantle sits Estinien's helm. For a moment he stares at it, perhaps remembering what she's remembering: how he dragged his fingers across it this very morning, murmuring his worries to someone that was not there. He pushes his hand back through his hair, mussing it until it looks the way he sounds: in absolute chaos. "I don't—I worry for him. I care for him. I do not wish to see him in pain. His happiness is our happiness, for all he has sacrificed." 

This, he seems to think, is some checkmate on it, some perfect argument. As if anyone else in Ishgard gives a rat's furry ass about Estinien Wyrmblood's happiness. As if anyone else is keeping his bloody Drachen mail oiled and set up on a stand in a private room on his estate.

She stares at him, unphased, and waits for all of this to sink in. Aymeric is many things but stupid is not one of them, for all her private ribbing.

And then he turns to her and works his mouth in silence until he can find his words.

"Oh, Halone," he whispers. "Do you think he knows?"

Isn't that the question.

* * *

The problem with loving Estinien—as one soldier loves another, by course—is that he's almost never there. If he were, maybe Aymeric could preoccupy himself with typical struggles, like fighting himself to find the words that will keep Estinien at his side a moment longer, worrying that every stolen glance might be the one that gives him away, and wondering if he'd really caught a glimpse of Estinien's eyes through the visor of his helmet or if it was just another trick of the light.

Three months to the day since he last saw a hair on Estinien's head. Is he eating right? Doubtful, Aymeric thinks, recalling every sit-down dinner he managed to cajole Estinien into over the years and the careless heap of any and all greenery left behind on his plate. Is he sleeping well? This, too, is unlikely, for how many nights did Aymeric crawl out of his tent in the early hours to find Estinien still seated by the company fire, light catching in his pale hair, a vision in the night? Or out on watch, perched somewhere high. How many cliffs did Aymeric scale to bring him the last of dinner? How many times did he grab Estinien's shirt along with his own when they had a few free hours to do mending and wash? How many times did Estinien appear back in camp at the end of a long day, brace of rabbits in hand to wordlessly hand to Aymeric to make something edible out of. They had it down to a fine art.

The reality is this: he doesn't need Estinien. They were ever self-sufficient friends—and yet, he wants. If only for a quiet conversation or the passing of a look or even his crude, naked honesty. 

All of this burns in him, a low flame, so used to its confines that it never tries to spill over and set him to distraction. It's only enough to keep him inexplicably warm, because it is warm and any heat is a blessing in the city of eternal winter. The Warrior is gone to some place too far off to ; the Firmament is half-built, and all is quiet, so he can allow himself this much, he thinks.

The small, precious distraction of knowing that somewhere else in the world stands another with just the smallest thread to keep them tied. Perhaps Estinien is leaping off some building at that very moment, swooping in for a grave rescue. Finding another gallant half-dead hero to drag to Aymeric's doorstep. 

A faint hope lives in him that this place at least is still a home to Estinien. That after long days, when his journey wearies him, it's Ishgard's spires he dreams of, and that if all else failed him, it's Ishgard he would return to. Sometimes when he returns to the manor, the suit of red drachen mail in the sitting room catches the corner of his eye and he almost starts. A specter, to mock him, but self-inflicted.

"Forgive me, Lord Commander," Francel says. "You seem distracted." 

Aymeric starts, and remembers ago at once he's not in his office but surrounded by people—who are trying to pretend they aren’t watching their Lord Commander and Speaker of the House of Lords stare into the middle distance like an idiot. Francel’s smile is politely concerned. He sounds genuine with the question, like he really would save this tour of the rebuilding efforts for another time to spare Aymeric—as if either of their schedules allow for that. Workers and newcomers, move around them, children playing at tossing snow and crossing blades. One even has a bow and seems to be trying to shoot down the snowballs his friends lob at him.

It's been so long since Ishgard felt so alive. Aymeric nods to Francel, chagrined. "Apologies. It's all… a bit overwhelming."

Francel smiles. He looks like a boy in a Lord's clothes with that expression. "It is, isn't it?" 

They've touched up the stonework, added a few beds of the spare flowers that can still survive Ishgard's perpetual winter, and started on the larger houses. At night, Ishgard looks like a jewel clinging to the mountainside, and now it feels like one, too. It feels alive. for a moment the little yearning that’s worked its way into Aymeric’s center eases. He is proud, and when Estinien returns, he will be, too. 

“As I was saying, about the statues...” Francel prompts.

"Statues?" Aymeric asks, keeping one eye on the snowballs that keep getting lobbed nearly past his head. Their aim leaves something to be desired, though the boy with the bow seems to be improving, even with his poor stance. Maybe he would appreciate a few tips.

"Yes. There were suggestions that we might make a monument to Lord Haurchefant, perhaps. Or the Azure Dragoon.”

The screaming of children playing nearby is almost enough to make that thought not bite. As if he could walk through this city with a statue of Estinien staring down at him from every angle.

“Lord Fortemps must be consulted, but I think it would make a fine gesture.” He sidesteps another poorly aimed ball of snow, politely ignoring the way Francel’s eyes seem to have gone the slightest bit bright.

Francel bows his head. “I thought—maybe we ought to ask the Warrior as well, just to see. I know it’s not much, all told, but—” 

Aymeric reaches out and lays a hand on his shoulder, and hopes the gesture is overly familiar. “You’ve done well. I cannot imagine how I would have managed half as much in twice the time. Truly—you honor all of us. And Haurchefant as well.” 

And now they are both pretending Francel is not crying as the happy chaos of the new city moves around him. Gods, what he would give for Estinien at his shoulder, for a quiet comment or a careful word to put it all in perspective and his heart to rest. 

That is the very last clear thought he has before something hits him low in the stomach.

He jerks and stares down to see if it’s a snowball or a rock _and_ a snowball and finds himself staring at the feathered end of an arrow shaft, which is sticking out of his stomach, because of course it is. Francel follows his gaze, and lets out with a tiny sound of shock. It’s the opposite side of where he was stabbed, at least, and that’s something, but it still feels—

"Not again," Aymeric murmurs. Already the sound of blood rushing through his head is numbingly loud and his vision is spotting from the pain his nerves haven’t registered yet. It’s unfair, is what it is. It’s silly. This is something Estinien would berate him for— _can’t you wear armor over your chest?_ a voice in Aymeric’s head mocks.

Slowly, the low din of noise around he and Francel quiets as one by one people turn to stare at the scene he’s making: Francel, hands over his mouth, and Aymeric trying very hard to decide how long he can feasibly remain standing with an arrow bolt inside him. "Good shot," he thinks to tell the boy, who is clutching his bow with both hands, his face whiter than the snow around them. 

Everyone is white as snow, actually. Aymeric himself is probably white as snow, too, if only because stomach wounds are rarely as pleasant as one might imagine, even the second time around.

Not pleasant at all. His vision is swimming. "Well," he says to no one in particular, though Lucia is suddenly right in front of him, along with three others of the Temple Knights. Handeloup had the day off to spend with his daughter—he’ll be so cross at being called in to take command for the night for something so foolish. Lucia’s eyes flick down to the arrow, to the shine spreading out across his dark tunic like ink spilled. A damn inconvenience is what it is. The crowd around them is the deathly silent of those who haven't yet figured out how to react, but there are whispers starting, prayers and despairing sounds.

"It's not so bad," Aymeric says for the benefit of everyone in earshot. "I do have armor on." 

Well, on the shoulders and legs and arms. His point is undercut as he dabs at the edge of the spreading stain and his hand comes away dark with blood. It's not... great. He wipes it off on his cloak and turns to Francel, who looks like he might be about to cry.

"Perhaps we might continue this at a later date."

Francel nods frantically and Aymeric carefully, gracefully, with all the composure his years of training can abide, walks his way back to the gates of the Firmament. This is part of the growing pains of leadership, he tells himself. These are the simple mistakes one will make when an entire nation’s worth of responsibilities are placed upon one’s shoulders. Nothing but growing pains, he thinks faintly. 

Maybe it’s best Estinien isn’t here to watch his inglorious rule after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please excuse errors as this was wholly edited while giving a zoom presentation on not ffxiv


	3. Chapter 3

Ishgard has changed. Gone are the piles of rubble that marked Foundation, the scrimped up fourth-hand boards nailed everywhere to keep the city from falling apart and taking unaware citizens with it, the masses of starving with their hollow eyes. They are still there, all of it is, but it's better than it was. A quick walk through the Crozier shows a dozen new merchants and new wares all around. Fruit only sold in Gridania and Ala Mhigo. Clothes and jewels that once would have been laughable in Ishgard's markets even a year past, for who could afford to buy them?

The people are filling out, and the city with them, and the sight does something to him, twists something just behind his ribs, like longing. It’s been too long—and, somehow, not long enough.

He stops at a bright stall of fruits and flowers and buys a spray of blooms tied with a ribbon the shade of blue that reminds him of Aymeric's eyes, because this is the sort of sentimental gesture Aymeric has always appreciated and maybe Estinien feels… not guilty, but contrite, for leaving without a word and staying gone so long.

The seller is a Hyur man who couldn’t look more out of place in cold Ishgard with his bright silks. Estinien is weighing the logic of bringing a peace offering of exotic apples, too, when the man tires of his silence. "New to the city?" he asks.

Estinien grunts. It used to be he could get away with even less, because who could argue with a suit of armor? But now the man can see his eyes and some modicum of social skill is required. 

"Well, good. Best keep to yourself,” the man offers, unasked, and leans forward. "The Temple Knights have been a bit… on edge since the recent incident." He does a poor job of pretending like he doesn't want to be asked for details.

Estinien grunts again, weighing fruit hand to hand. Was it the redder they are, the sweeter? Does Aymeric _like_ apples? No, he does. Or, he did, back when they were new to the Knights, and Estinien had found a tree with a decent haul, before the frost had come to Ishgard, and when he tossed one to the dark-haired boy that followed him here and there, Aymeric had taken it like it was the best meal he'd seen in weeks—though Estinien had shared a rabbit with him just the day before. 

"Yes, it was terrible business. Terrible," the merchant says and pauses. 

Estinien sighs to himself. “What?”

"Oh, you haven’t heard? The Lord Commander stabbed in the street—again!"

The fruit in Estinien's hand falls to the cobblestone street with a wet sound. "Stabbed?"

The merchant leans over the stall to stare after the fruit, frowning. "You'll have to pay for—"

"Stabbed?" Estinien repeats, ready to grab him by the lapels of his velveteen jacket. " _Again?_ " The word tears out of him and the merchant flinches from head to toe. 

"On second thought, those are on me, never you mind—and yes, again. Where've you been?"

East. Garlemald. Possessed by a dragon and still picking scales off his arm. Diving into facilities built by those bent on decimation more than rule with the prayer that he might stave some of it off in time for the real heroes to arrive. But he doesn't reply. The nearest aetheryte is a minute's walk, but he might make it in half the time if he went quickly, and he's good at that. From there it's only a sprint to the Congregation. Not that they'll recognize him like this, but the spear strapped to his back will be convincing enough, one way or another. 

Stabbed—again. Again? Estinien will have his hide, if aught remains of Aymeric to take it from. 

A slide of something oily and almost forgotten settles into his gut. That anger, that feral rage at the prospect of loss and the need to sate it on someone or something, because there was always somewhere to throw blame, but now he reads it for what it is. Guilt, in full. He is angry at Aymeric for being fool enough to let down his guard twice and furious at whoever let it happen, livid at the one who did it, but the larger share is for himself. The _why wasn't I told_ is easily answered. How could they have? And Aymeric was never one to worry him about the little things like a hole in his gut. Too busy being quietly, elegantly stoic.

He does make it to the Congregation in half the time, every breath between coming harder and shallower, like his lungs have forgotten how to breathe the cold. Just as he's weighing the value of a jump against his dignity and the hassle of dealing with the guards at the Congregation door, a familiar face steps outside, flanked to either side by Temple Knights who all three look like they last got sleep several days ago.

"Lucia!"

Her eyes light on him. Recognition flickers across her face and then it clouds like a storm over the Hinterlands. "Oh," she says, sounding like nothing so much as someone picking a bug off their plate. "It's you."

His feet slow against his will, as if sensing that walking into the maw of this beast might be inadvisable. 

"We tried to send word," she says when he's close enough that she doesn't have to shout. "Imagine my surprise when the Scions had no notion where you might be and that you hadn’t picked up your linkpearl in weeks." She doesn't sound like it was a surprise at all, rather she sounds tired and more than a little peeved, and now Estinien's anger is melting away, leaving naught but a low fear.

"He's all right?" 

The question comes out more a plea and her face softens a bit. "Just a... minor wound. He's still in bed and fighting every moment of it." She nods to the doors, toward the infirmary, and it's all the permission he needs to push past her and the bewildered guards who clearly haven’t recognized him at all.

“Good luck,” she shouts after him, and something after that’s clipped by the heavy doors slamming shut behind him. The guard at the stairs jumps when he realizes Estinien is headed toward him. He gives the guard a look hopes brooks no argument, but as the man sees Nidhogg strapped to his back he seems to decide it’s not worth it and steps aside.

There are more guards present than ought be in an infirmary, a fact Estinien notes with growing anxiety as he mounts the stairs outside the great doors of the room he’s spent more than his share of time in. At least the infirmary staff seem to remember him—they’re coming out of the room just as he’s ready to push his way inside, and Abel simply notes his presence with the quirk of a brow that seems to say, _Where have you been?_

Aymeric is propped up in bed behind him, lined in afternoon light. His bed robe is open at the front, revealing the wrap of bandages across his midriff. He looks up at the sound of the door opening, or at the grunt of surprise and rage that Estinien makes half by accident, and the sheaf of papers in his hands slip to the bed. One hand is wrapped in bandages, too, and Estinien can nearly see the moment in his mind’s eye—Aymeric gripping the blade in his gut and pulling it free with his own strength. The fool. The utter idiocy.

Estinien walks with what he feels are measured steps, to stand beside the bed, hands fists at his side, as Aymeric watches his approach the way he might once have watched a dragon's looming shadow.

"I've told you a thousand times,” Estinien says with a roughness to his voice he can barely speak over, “that armor is worthless if it doesn't cover your damn vitals. No one is trying to stab your shoulders, boy."

Aymeric gapes at him. "Boy? Boy—we're the _same_ age."

Estinien folds his arms. "You're still a boy if you wear armor that's no better than a child’s dress up clothes."

"It's traditional."

"What part of the tradition is getting stabbed in the stomach, repeatedly? I don't recall."

"I was not stabbed.” Aymeric busies himself reordering the papers into a neat pile on his lap. “Twas merely a... misadventure in archery.” Absently, he flexes his bandaged hand. “And splinters, I suppose.”

"You were shot? In the city?"

That’s different, but Estinien can’t decide if it’s better or worse than the brazenness of a broad-daylight stabbing. Assassination from afar is something else, and yet if the dragoons still have purpose in this city, to keep watch on the skies must be it. He’s formulating the outlines of the shouting he wants to do when Aymeric gives him a withering glance. 

"By accident. The boy had an incredible draw for his age."

"You were shot by a child? And you still tell me you don’t need proper armor?”

Aymeric's mouth works uselessly. It's his most devastating tool, nigh as deadly as his blade the way his lips curl at the corners in some secret, constant amusement, never mind his voice, but it fails him now. "My apologies, we cannot all wear a full suit of drachen metal to every social engagement."

And yes. He may have a fine voice and finer words, but he's never had Estinien's penchant for arguing, and Estinien has little shame left and never had the grace to not play dirty. A seat is propped against the wall; Estinien pulls it up next to the bed and sits as Aymeric watches him with one eye, wary.

For a moment he lets himself study Aymeric—all the little newnesses, and everything that hasn’t changed from when they were barely more than boys. He still has that same intensity to his gaze, that makes every person in turn feel as if they are the only object in the room worth looking at. It settles over Estinien like a familiar weight, and he lets out a sigh of breath he didn’t realize had been waiting to escape. It’s more than half relief. 

"I have a spare set you could borrow, though it was none too clean last I checked." And there's an image—Aymeric's fine form in the svelte gold on black of the traditional dragoon armor. 

"No.” Aymeric smooths the sheets with one hand and says primly, “ _I_ have a spare set, which my dear friend left on the floor of the infirmary, and which I am keeping for him, should he require it again.” When he looks down, his hair falls over his forehead. It’s longer than it was when last they met, starting to curl at the ends the way it only ever threatened to when they were younger. The urge to take a lock of it between his fingers and see if it’s as soft as it was then is almost overwhelming in the moment. 

He reaches out and fingers the edge of the bandage instead. Aymeric flinches at the touch. 

"It hurts?"

Aymeric shakes his head. "Not the least. It'll come off in a few days, and I no worse for the wear." 

"...This is the second time."

"Ah. Who told you?" 

Estinien lets a grim smile set his mouth. "A foreign man in the market. To my great surprise. Twice, really? Was the first a child as well?" 

“No, not quite. A minor assassination attempt, I think—his heart wasn’t really in it.” Aymeric waves it off. “And besides, that was long ago, before you were returned to us." 

A beat passes as this information absorbs. He was not lost to Nidhogg long enough for Aymeric to suffer a wound dire enough to be called an assassination attempt and yet singlehandedly haul a near-dead dragoon back to Ishgard in his arms. They're of a height, and Estinien is heavy—was, even after all Nidhogg's rage had burnt away of him. Estinien's throat closes in stale emotion, dread long passed its prime.

"When you carried me back to the city, you were hurt?" It's not a real question. Something is leaping about at just the edge of his ken, some truth yet to be realized. 

"Not—no. It was well healed by then." 

A lie. A bald one, at that, and Aymeric is so painfully honest. All his cunning lies in the dignity of his position, his intelligence and unflinching honor, but he wears his every thought on his sleeve when his guard is down and it's always down when it's the two of them. He could not lie to Estinien for all the gold in Saint Reymanaud's Cathedral. This is so like him. If someone told him the only way to win the Dragonsong War was to feed himself on a platter to Nidhogg he'd have called the cook and the butcher both and tipped both for their time. It makes something in him uncurl from its long sleep and begin to rage.

Estinien's hand fists in the sheets between them. "You _idiotic_ —" He bites off the curse and leans closer, making every word count. "I'll not lose you. Not to some halfwit fool with a knife in the damned street. Not to a boy with a—a toy bow. And not to your own stubbornness. Already have I wasted half my life seeking mad revenge. Already have I lived with a dragon's rage for his dead love coursing through my veins, like fire. I'll not do it again."

Aymeric's blue eyes widen. His lovely mouth falls open, but no smooth response, no disarming quip falls from it. And then Estinien, for perhaps the first time in his life, is obliged to repeat his own words back to himself in his head.

Comparing himself to Nidhogg and Aymeric to Ratatoskr. A perfectly adequate way to refer to one's friend. A perfectly normal thought. A perfectly wonderful sentiment to express aloud, to said friend, inches from his face. He closes his eyes in private despair.

"It was but a metaphor," Aymeric offers him, voice pitched oddly. "I understand, my friend."

But it wasn't. It wasn't a metaphor at all and Estinien is perhaps the last person in Ishgard one would accuse of such a thing. The truth is that the thought of Aymeric gone is a black pit in his mind. If he has a family, if anyone could qualify, it's Aymeric. His oldest friend, his quiet companion, and all of Ishgard's good luck. If he had died in the Vault to the Knights' tortures, no force in the nation could have held Estinien's rage at bay. What use saving Ishgard if the city killed the best hope it had? Nidhogg could have taken his mind on a whim at the rage of that, at the grief. Estinien would have let him.

"It was not a metaphor."

Aymeric blinks at him, those eyes like nothing so much as Ishgard’s sky on a blue morning like they haven’t seen in years. His mouth falls open as he searches Estinien’s face. Years of looking at him through a helmet have spoiled Estinien for the number of chances he's had to lazily trace the line of Aymeric's mouth and let it mean nothing. 

And then Aymeric's face is closer than it was, and his eyes wider, and Estinien's mind goes in two directions at once as he realizes what he's doing—because Aymeric isn't the one moving and the part of him that has survived all his years on action and instinct cannot live in this room another second without knowing what Aymeric's perfect mouth feels like pressed to his own. It's not a new thought—not a new desire—but he only realizes it in that moment as the cup of his want finally runs over and almost ruins everything.

Many times and at length he's reminded Aymeric of the utter foolishness of ordering Nidhogg's eyes tossed into the abyss, and just as often wondered at the prospect of Aymeric de Borel panicking himself into that particular flavor of idiocy—what a spectacle it must have made. Now, understanding dawns. He panics and the hand that was reaching up to cup Aymeric’s cheek with only half his awareness instead grabs Aymeric by the back of his head and pulls him down and his mouth settles not on Aymeric’s lips but amid the fly-away curls covering his forehead.

He pulls back, mouth burning from even that—from nothing, from the hint of warm skin, from what he almost did. Aymeric is staring at him as if he really has grown horns at last. 

Estinien stands so fast the chair screeches against the floor. "Don't run into any more knives until I return,” he orders, and then makes what is at least his second or third most graceless retreat from the room, after every time in training he jumped off a cliff by accident. Maybe worse, even, than that.

Aymeric doesn't say a word.

* * *

"If someone—if a friend were to—" Aymeric pauses, hums a sound of confusion, and finishes, "Well, no. It can't be. I just can't sort it." 

The headache that started the moment she caught sight of pale hair and a red spear—and why the spear? Why now, when there are no dragons left to fight?—redoubles its efforts. "What did he do?" She can be forgiven if it comes across just a bit protective. Leave it to Estinien to appear from thin air for the first time in an age, do something that has Aymeric looking at his hands like he doesn't recognize himself, and disappear again in a veritable breeze.

"He—well. He touched my forehead with his mouth. I can't decide…" he trails off, now staring at the window, and with the peak of his bandages under the jacket draped around his shoulders, he looks younger than he has in some time. 

She notes this as she tries to sort his words into a language she recognizes. "Mouth? He—kissed you?"

"No, no. Nothing like that." He taps his forehead. "Just here."

"He kissed you." She's simply trying to make the words work. Trying to imagine a reality in which Estinien even knows that the concept of a kiss exists is another thing entirely.

"No!" Aymeric says more forcefully, frustration starting to color his face. For a moment it looks like he'll stand from the bed; Lucia takes a step forward and he sits back immediately, cowed. "No. It wasn't like that." 

The cool rationality in his voice would be more convincing if the fingers against his lips weren't shaking, and well. Maybe this is just the chance she’s needed to put them all out of their misery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!!!


	4. Chapter 4

Precisely three steps outside the Congregation's doors, with his hands shaking and his heart beating in his chest like a war drum, a blur of white descends on him. 

The thing about dragons, and baby dragons perhaps in particular, is that they are large, and the part of him trained from childhood to recognize the flash of scale against the sun and to pick the acrid scent of their fire from the slightest breeze reaches for his lance on instinct. It's only Orn Khai, but it's the first time he's seen the dragonling since they entered the city and he flew off to "see the sights" before Estinien could do as much as warn him that not all Ishgard was quite so tolerant to the change in the status quo as Estinien. Though it probably would have done nothing but earn him a laugh given the hundred or so times Estinien threatened him with immediate slaying on their long, long boat ride from the East.

Estinien wheels on him and reconsiders drawing his lance after all. "Where in the seven hells have you been? I told you to stay close soon as we reached the Shroud."

Orn Khai ignores his tone and wheels around in a flourish. "Exploring!"

Exploring Ishgard, the city of barely reformed dragonslayers. That's perfect. Estinien is treated to a vision of Orn Khai fluttering around the Brume, playing in the snow with children, unheeding of the angry mob of pitchfork wielding parents about to skewer him into dragonet kabobs. "I told you—the people of Ishgard are not like those of the East. They still fear your kind."

Orn Khai _sticks his tongue out_. A gesture he picked up from one of the lalafell Scions no doubt, most likely the one with the ridiculous ears on her hood. Estinien closes his eyes and tries to will himself to patience. Far easier to slay a dragon than try to protect one, and if anyone had told him as a Temple Knight that one day he would be playing nursemaid to a dragonet ten times his age, he might have quit then and there and struck out for a life as an onion farmer. The money was good, he heard, and maybe Aymeric could have been convinced to go into business with him. Less stabbings in onion farming, surely. 

"Is he your mate?" 

Estinien nods absently and then realizes what's been asked. "No!"

"I was watching. Through the window." The clarification isn't strictly necessary. 

"He's a friend."

"Oh, good. I don't want to watch you mate. I was worried when you touched him. Human mating is so messy." The dragon opens his mouth and makes a growl that Estinien realizes is him gagging. Which is fair, but he's seen dragons mate and it's not much better. 

"You weren't invited," Estinien mutters. It's too close to the feeling he's been trying to outpace since he left the Congregation. Now he picks an aimless direction and starts walking, as if that's going to spare him further questions. Orn Khai flits up beside him with a single flap of his wings. 

"Did he like your gift? When my sire was courting Faunehm he brought her a beast from the wild. One of the great efts that dwells in the river. Or so I've heard."

Oh, gods, the flowers. Estinien looks down at his pocket where the bouquet is wilting dejectedly. They were a sorry offering anyway, he consoles himself. "I doubt he has room for an eft," he mutters. Or anything else, as if Estinien could afford it, as if he isn't nearly on his last gil between keeping himself and Orn Khai fed and housed, to say nothing of the cost of their slow passage back to Ishgard. No one is as impressed with a dragon here as they were in Kugane and rather more inclined to charge double than half.

"What about a karakul?" 

"No." Estinien glances at him, appraising. "But maybe he'd find use for a dragonet. They're working on rebuilding the Firmament, I hear—how are you at carrying loads?" From experience and the pack waiting in their room in the Forgotten Knight, stuffed to the brim with Orn Khai's favorite odds and ends, he's not much fond of carrying anything at all. "And I am not courting him." Even the thought is laughable. Him, courting anyone. The conversation came up now and again around the fire when they were young in the rare cases he wasn't fast enough to escape as soon as the wind of conversation moved in that direction, and it was foreign to him as tales of far-off Ilsabard and Sharlayan. No one would have him for the courting, and all he longed for was blood beside.

He pauses at the edge of the city, where there is nothing in the distance but snow fields and mist. How ominous it once seemed—how hopeless. Anything could hide there in wait. It tormented his dreams when he’d made Azure Dragoon, and for a solid year he was happy for the helm that hid the bruises under his eyes when his nights were full of dreams of destruction befalling what little he had left. This was why Aymeric made such an amiable companion. Estinien fought for the past, for what had been stolen from him and might be stolen again, and Aymeric fought for the future, for the possibility of what Ishgard could become when the killing was done. The ends differed but the means made them kindred. And he never asked Estinien about his future spouse, either way.

He could not imagine courting for some quiet life with a spouse to tend a happy home and children, but he could imagine someone at his back in blood and fire. That he had already.

Orn Khai is still prattling on about courting gifts by the time they've circled back and are staring at the doors of the Forgotten Knight. Estinien braces himself as he pushes open the doors. The streets are abandoned enough by evening that no one can mind the odd pair they make, but that’s only because the cold outside is unbearable. The din from inside the inn is audible even at the stairs.

It silences the moment Estinien and Orn Khai descend and enter sight. Even a baby dragon is hard to miss. _Should have gone around the back and jumped to the balcony,_ he realizes as the patrons' faces cross the spectrum from enraptured to enraged. It's early in the night, but not so early that one table isn't already on what must be their third round—one man seems to notice them a moment after the rest and then starts and stands from his chair so fast it goes clattering to the floor behind him. His two companions rise with him, hands already on their blades. Wonderful.

"You best go back the way you came," the man starts in what must be his most threatening voice. It's dimmed a bit by the errant slur, but it gets the point across. 

Estinien loosens his stance. His spear is on his back, but he doesn’t reach for it. It won't do to start skewering drunks in the city's favorite tavern. "No. I don't think I will."

The man's face scrunches in rage or confusion. "That—that thing can't be in here. Get _out._ "

"He paid for his room same as you." Estinien moves to step past him. Actually, Estinien paid, but that's how it always goes. The things he's done to keep them both in house and feed... "Don't do this," he adds, and it comes out exactly as tired as he feels and then some.

It doesn't work. 

The man takes a stumbling step toward him, and if every eye in the place hadn't been on him before that, they are now. He has no weapon in hand, but fists hurt, too. He's Roegadyn, and bigger around than Estinien by far. The man sizes him up like an ox ready to charge, but twice as stupid with his eyes dulled by the drink. 

When he finally moves, it's with surprising speed. Estinien steps out of his way and the man goes tripping past before he corrects his course and goes again. It's awkward, terrible, the absolute apex of his day. 

On his next sidestep, he positions himself so at least the man will be headed away from Orn Khai, who is watching along with the rest of the patrons in utter fascination instead of leaving like he should be. The fighting prowess of the legendary Azure Dragoon, Estinien thinks to himself dully, as he raises his hand to deliver a blow to the back of the man's head that will end this. 

He misses the woman entirely.

Unlike her companion, she doesn't telegraph what she's going to do before she does it. The flash of a dagger at the corner of his eye is his only warning as she pulls back her hand for a throw. It would be an easy thing to dodge, even so—but she's not aiming at him at all. Her eyes are on Orn Khai.

Even young dragons are big. Even young dragons are a wide target, and his scales are not like those of some ancient wyrm. He can be cut. He can be killed.

"Orn Khai!" Without thought but with enough forethought to brace himself for the oncoming pain he dodges in front of Orn Khai. Stupid, he thinks as he does it and stupid again a moment later when he sees the woman decide the throw is still worth it. Time slows. Aymeric will never let him live this one down—

"Enough."

He was so focused on the blade, he missed the other player in the room. The damaged leg doesn't slow Gibrillont down, and leave it to the owner of the oldest tavern in Ishgard to know how to stop a fight before it can start destroying property. He has the woman's hand in death grip; she flinches and the blade falls from her limp fingers. Her companion is too stunned from his fall to do more than stare blankly. The other man with them takes his chance to sit back down as if he's never seen the other two in his life.

"You fools. Do you know who that is?" Gibrillont asks and releases the woman who tears her hand back and rubs at her wrist. Her stony silence is answer enough, and Estinien wishes briefly he might do anything to stay Gibrillont from his next words, but they come all the same. "That is Estinien Wyrmblood—the Azure Dragoon." He inclines his head with enough real respect in the gesture that Estinien feels a piece of himself escape down through the floorboards. 

And now the silence in the room is intent and focused. Ah, yes, the great slayer of dragons, the great protector of the realm—the man who let Nidhogg possess his very body and soul. His shoulder smarts where the eye once sat, as it does now at odd moments, and he rolls it in half a shrug and sighs. "That title belongs to the Lord Commander now," he tells them, but the look in Gibrillont's eyes says, with apology, that it will never be so.

This reverence, he hasn't earned. He glances to Orn Khai. Though the expressions of dragons are oft hard to decipher, he would know delight anywhere. Of course, he would love this, and never mind that he narrowly avoided being made into mince dragonet moments before.

"We'll take our meal in our room," Estinien tells Gibrillont under his breath and makes his way around the mess he’s made as best he can. It's a short walk across the room to the second set of stairs that will lead outside, and he spends all of it ignoring the craning of necks and unquiet whispers that follow them. Orn Khai at least has the common courtesy to wait until they're outside and out of earshot before he twirls in midair around Estinien in a swoop that seems designed to trip him and send him over the half-rubble railing. 

"You're famous!"

"I am not." 

"Yes you are! Had I only known I traveled with such a celebrity...” It’s half in jest, but there’s admiration in it, too, as if he believed the Azure Dragoon only infamous to dragons—and that’s the distinction, isn’t it? Infamy and admiration are far distant from one another. 

Estinien wipes at his forehead to push the hair aside. His skin is hot—too hot, like it always is when he fears or angers now, a small reminder of what he briefly was. “Maybe, once. No longer.” 

No sense dwelling in the hazed past, but Orn Khai is having none of it. “They do. I saw children playing with little mammets that look just like you. You were fighting a snow dragon—which is silly. We can’t be made of snow, of course—”

"You did not." That's not even worth entertaining. Not even the thought of it. A mammet? How could Aymeric approve of something so sentimental? No. Orn Khai is mistaken.

"Tomorrow," Orn Khai promises when he sees the skepticism in Estinien’s eyes, "I'll buy you one and prove it." With what, or more specifically _whose_ , money isn't clear. 

The excitement in his eyes leaves a bitter taste in Estinien’s mouth, but shame is a concept as far from Orn Khai as the Steppes are to them both now. "Toys and half-true stories—no. I am not their hero anymore.” If he ever was. Aymeric took the title and the duty both, a burden off his shoulders. "I cannot protect them. Not as I once did." Because protecting meant killing and vengeance and the beating thrum of anger and loss tearing at the heart of him. The vision of his lance pierced through dragon flesh, dripping viscera, the grin behind his helm, comes unbidden and he has to breathe through his nose and brace himself on the railing outside the door until the wave of nausea passes. 

If Orn Khai notices, it doesn't show. By the time Estinien fights the lock on their door open, he’s back to half-bursting with excitement and almost bowls Estinien over on the way in as he swoops to the windowsill and stares out at the vastness of Ishgard at twilight, at the lights on the spires that seem to glitter in the cool air. "I suppose with the Azure Dragoon at my side I could get a tour of the castle, then—"

"It's a Cathedral."

"—and maybe a special audience with the Lord Commander himself. I have so many questions. Should I bring him a gift? A hat, perhaps? Do your kind wear hats?" 

What kind he could possibly be referring to is lost on Estinien—Elezen?—as is his enthusiasm, but it does bring back a fond memory of the first time he saw Aymeric attempt formal wear for some lord's gala and the sight he made in a hat and alpine jacket that nearly swamped him, as ridiculous as it was compelling, in the oddest way. 

"Why are you smiling? Are you thinking of him?" Estinien grunts and Orn Khai ducks his head slyly. “Are you quite sure you don’t want to m—”

"Do not finish that sentence."

"Oh, why be coy? We’re all adults here, after all,” he says primly, and adds under his breath, “Anyway, you're the one who kissed him."

Oh, for the love left to him. "It wasn’t a kiss!” Estinien flaps his hands at Orn Khai, waving him out the window as he does. “Out. Out!" 

Orn Khai clings to the sill indignantly. "But it is so cold outside, and I hate the cold, Estinien—Estinien, _wait—_ ”

"Your grandmother was an ice demon. You'll live."

"Shiva wasn't—"

An ice demon? His grandmother? Estinien pries his last claw free and closes the shutters, if only to gain himself a blessed few minutes of silence—a decision he immediately regrets when his own thoughts are nothing but an endless loop of Aymeric's face, getting closer, the shock-blue of his eyes and then the terrible softness of his hair and the heat of his skin, the match for it burning up Estinien’s back with a shudder as he thinks of it. Now every tryst he's borne unwilling witness to while he stood guard at the edge of camp is coming back to him.

He buries his head in one hand and prays for strength, for logic, for the incessant tapping at the window to cease for even a moment. 

When it finally does, he barely notices. It’s the knock at the door of a harried maid delivering food that pulls him from his reverie. There’s an extra portion of meat on the side that would have been unimaginable once upon a time but apparently is another sign of Ishgard’s new rise. It’s not more than Estinien can eat on his own, but Orn Khai would never forgive him. If he’s still there at all, that is. Probably off searching out trouble or deciding to test his theory that the office of the Lord Commander will be open to any stray dragonet that claims acquaintanceship with errant dragoons. Oh, god—the things he could tell Aymeric… 

Estinien flings the shutters back open, and there's not a scale in sight. "This is not the Far East!” he calls to the night. “You can't go flitting off…" He trails off in muttered curses, mentally preparing himself for a night of dragon hunting in the cold and light snow—not nearly as fun as he once found it, not after months of fair weather and temperate evenings—but then he sees the steam rising from just the other side of the lintel, and then the slight sound of claws scrabbling for purchase. 

"Get in here," he says with a sigh, “and stop talking about mates, or you really will spend the night outside.”

Orn Khai crawls back into the window, looking like nothing so much as an oversize lizard. He eyes at the plate and Estinien nods and turns away to turn down the bed to spare himself the sight of a dragonet swallowing most of a side of karakul whole. 

It's somehow not in him later to complain when he feels the ample weight of another body settle against his legs, over the sheets. Actually, it's welcome. It wasn't in Othard where he had to strip down to almost nothing to get any sleep at all in the heat and the added mass of a dragon’s wing sprawled across him only made it that much more unbearable. 

Now, it’s the oddest comfort. Maybe, on occasion, it was nice to have the company. To sit together sharing a freshly roasted meal by a fire, listening to his companion babble endlessly about dragons and they're mysterious ways. So much of his life felt like penance, but on those nights he could imagine his lance had never split the hide of a dragon, that their fire had never taken all he loved. On nights like this, even.

"Sleep well," he murmurs to the quiet.

"I still think that he might want a courting gift,” Orn Khai murmurs. “You should consider it at least—" 

"Good night, dragon."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can find this fic on [twitter](https://twitter.com/arahir/status/1295503158576156673) and [tumblr](https://arahir.tumblr.com/post/626741577152446464/whats-lying-in-the-bed-is-somehow-not-the-azure)!
> 
> I'll add tags and change ratings as it comes. I want to say this was requested by a friend, but I can't throw him under the bus that far so please accept my apology for what this is and will be.


End file.
